Can't Wipe It Off
by Snowdrop.Faery
Summary: When a young girl is kidnapped, it's up to the CSI to find out where she is, and sort through a jumble of family lies to get there.[COMPLETE 3 Part MiniFic][involves rape and abuse]
1. Chapter 1

**Can't Wipe It Off**

**PART 1**

_She groaned loudly, trying to kick as hard as she could to get him to back off. Her legs stung with effort and the taste of salty tears fell dripped to her lips in a constant stream._

"_Please… I'm sorry, just please stop." She tried to speak but her voice barely rose above a whisper as the man overtook her and everything went black._

§

"Mother was found in the closet, her body was raped and mutilated with some sort of knife." Calleigh looked up from the bloodstain on the carpet to make eye contact with Horatio. "There is a husband and a daughter. He's in New York on a business trip, and the girl is missing."

She stood up and looked around the room. Retracing the bloody footsteps to the bed, Calleigh found she felt nauseated and disgusted. Blood spatter was everywhere: the windows and walls. A woman so unsuspecting was now lying dead in the closet, a rope wrapped around her neck and wrists.

"So, we have a kidnapping?" asked Lt. Horatio Caine, his eyebrows furrowing above his sunglasses. "Or do we know where the daughter is?"

"She was supposed to have been in the house." Alexx Woods made an entrance from the large walk in closet, pulling off her red stained latex gloves. "But there is no trace of her anywhere. And if she was found by the same guy who did that," she motioned to the closet, "Honey, I hope that she didn't suffer."

Horatio nodded his head and turned to face the window. "Well, first things first… we need to find daddy."

§

"What have you got Alexx?"

The medical examiner looked up from the swollen and very much dead body of Maria Sine. "Well, although the killing was messy, it's been hard to find a trace of anyone. It's like the person who did it has done it before. See these?" She motioned to several cuts on the woman's abdomen. "You would think that traces from a knife or whatever object would have caused and infection of some sort, or even left a trace. Nothing. It's like the killer sanitized his weapons."

Horatio stood hushed for a moment. The humming of the refrigerated holds for the bodies covered the silence of his thoughts. "The rope?"

"I sent it to the lab. Calleigh is looking at it right now. Unless this woman is hiding something, our hope is based on Calleigh's finds."

"Not just ours… her daughter is missing."

Without warning the metal doors burst open and Eric strode through, his face frozen deep in concentration. "We've got the husband, and a ransom note."

§

"It was mailed to me. I-I mean e-mailed. I brought my laptop if you need it." Mr. George Sine looked up through his thick lenses, magnifying his dark eyes. He ran a hand through the light blonde hair, which contrasted his skin tone. His face was swollen from crying.

"Mr. Sine, where have you been during the past three days?" Horatio leaned over the table, his stature defensive.

"New York city. I was staying in th-the Hilton hotel; the one near Astoria. I was there for a business trip… I manage a company- Alcrop. We help to distribute proper agricultural farming methods around the United States. Pesticides and insecticides are made in our company and approved by the government along with safer farming practice and things like that." A bead of sweat rolled down round face.

"Do you have any proof of where you stayed and when you were there, Mr. Sine?"

"Receipts," burst the man. "I keep all my receipts." He smiled genuinely.

"Good, we will need all of them." Horatio turned his back on the man and strolled out.

Once on the other side of the glass he saw his colleague and with a frown approached him. "Eric, is there anything you noticed about the man?" asked Horatio.

"Well…" Eric stroked his chin thoughtfully. "He never did ask about his wife or daughter. Even when we took him into custody. He just kept… defending himself."

"Precisely."

Eric watched Horatio walk away, his thoughts based on the girl. The ransom note wasn't really a ransom note, merely a threat. Nothing that could help them--no meeting places or secret passwords. They had found a picture of her in the home and kept it as evidence. She was blonde like her father, but rather than having his dark complexion, she was pale. Blue eyes and a wide smile were flaunted—she was also tainted looking; older than seventeen. Carrie Sine.

He looked into the glass room once more before strolling away.

§

Calleigh examined the rope, cell phone, and random artifacts found at the crime scene. Much like Alexx, her investigation wasn't getting very far. Although she had gone over the rope a thousand times, it appeared that the murderer was either experienced or well researched. She had assumed that with the rope being so tight around the victim's neck, epidermis would be covering it. However, she was wrong.

She looked over the other objects. A cell phone, which, by going through the contacts, she learned, belong to Maria Sine. The only fingerprints belonged to the victim and another female who Calleigh suspected to be her daughter. All outgoing and incoming calls had been erased, and the battery was full.

She turned the rope over in her hands and looked closer, peering until her neck hurt. She had decided to look one last time when a tiny fragment caught her eye. Almost embedded in the weave of the rope was a small piece of white material… almost like saran wrap. She grinned momentarily before analyzing it even more thoroughly to discover it was latex; most likely, a rubber glove.

The door to her lab opened up and Horatio stepped in. She smiled at him.

"You're just in time," she said, her accent a little thicker than usual. "Alexx was right. Our murderer knew what he or she was doing." She lifted up the fragmented piece of substance. "Latex—most likely from a rubber glove."

Horatio cocked an eyebrow. "Now who would have everyday access to rubber gloves?"

"Lots of people; doctors, nurses, people who work with chemicals or harmful compounds. Anything that's messy. However," she placed the material into an unshapely machine and clicked one of the buttons. "If we can find out exactly what its composition is, we can find the brand. I know it's a long shot, but maybe it is a private company, one that distributes only to businesses directly. Not for the general public."

Horatio looked down for a moment, thinking once again of the kidnapped girl. "Well, if it comes from some sort of factory—that is what Mr. Sine works in isn't it? That sort of industry work? Chemicals and pesticides and how they should or should not be used. Maybe someone is blackmailing Mr. Sine."

"How so?" Calleigh continued to focus on the computer next to the machine.

"Well, maybe Mr. Sine evokes jealousy. Staying in the Hilton Hotel, attending meeting and have a good time. Maybe his workers are jealous."

Calleigh looked up from the computer. "It's a good theory, but not plausible." She pressed a button on the keyboard and looked up the screen on the other end of the room. "Our glove came from a private company that distributes its products to private clinics across Miami. All nine hundred of them."

§

"Mr. Sine, we need to know if you know anyone in the medical field. Nurses, doctors, specialists? Anyone you know personally." Eric looked down on him, his eyes appearing hard.

"I don't think so… no. Not anyone except my doctor. And I see him twice a year."

Eric walked up closer to the table and leaned on it, trying to appear menacing. "How about anyone who works in a clinic or hospital?"

George's eyes darted left and right before he stared straight back Eric. "No." He replied with a single word, and quite deftly looked away. "I want a lawyer. All this questioning; it's like you think I murdered my wife!"

Eric turned around and before walking out of the room gave George a nasty grin. "Around here, it's guilty until proven innocent George."

Eric slammed the door behind him and walked right into Calleigh. "Sorry!" He jumped back and shuffled nervously.

"Nothing then?" She brushed a strand of hair back into place before peering through the one way mirror. "He must know something. There is no way it's random. Whoever did this knew the house and knew it well. The only footsteps lead to and from the bedroom. They didn't wander or look around or steal anything—"

"Except a seventeen year old girl."

§

_She looked up in shook at her captor. She thought him to be innocent of anything like this. A harmless man. Her friend even._

"_Where is my dad?" She yelled across the room and listened to the echo. "Does he know you've got me?" Her voice was high and shrill and cracked because of lack of water. She was hanging from a hook in the middle of a dark room, her wrists bound and tied around the clasp. Her knees grazed the floor and she was positive that wherever she was, was a basement._

_The man walked up to her, his beard appeared to be covered in filth. "Do I need to make you shut up?" Her eyes widened as he pulled out a gun and pushed the barrel into her shoulder. "Do I?"_

_She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Give me another chance."_

"_I don't believe in second chances."_


	2. Chapter 2

**Can't Wipe It Off**

**PART 2**

_She lay on her back on the floor, sobbing, her body unable to take the heat that flamed up her shoulder from the gun and lower down where he moved back and forth on top of her. She was trapped and there was nothing she could do._

§

"Horatio!" Eric ran up behind the man through the lab. Horatio turned around abruptly.

"Any news?"

"He's got a brother. Mr. Sine has a brother that works at Capital Sun Health Clinic on the west side." Eric hook his head.

"Well that's something he failed to tell us." Horatio narrowed his eyebrows.

"And better yet, he works in the morgue. He's got to where gloves, and it's a great place to store bodies. Calliegh looked him up. She says come to her room."

They walked down the hallway towards Calleigh's room in silence, Eric leading the way confidently. _A lead!_ he thought. He opened the door and immediately there was chatter from behind it. Calleigh began to brief Horatio immediately.

"His name is Jared Sine, and he's been arrested for attempted rape before, and smuggling. He's thirty-two years old. Apparently he's been clean for five years now, and hasn't been arrested for anything." She looked up and opened her mouth to speak. Before she could start a humming cut her off.

All three CSI looked towards the glass table where the deceased Maria Sine's cell phone vibrated against the surface. Horatio strode over and without thinking picked it up.

"Hello?" His voice deepened and he waited for the response.

"Mom?" came a whisper.

"Carrie? Carrie don't hang up. Can you tell me where you are? Are you hurt?"

The voice on the other end got smaller. "She's dead?"

"Carrie I can help you, but I need to know where you are." While the conversation had been going on Calleigh had been quickly moving to hook up the phone to a tracking devise.

"Who is this?"

"My name a Horatio Caine. I'm going to help you Carrie but I need you to help me, okay?"

"Okay. It's dark. There are no windows and I-I think I'm in a basement… it's smelly… I'm—he's coming! Please don't call back." A frantic whisper ended the phone call as there was a soft click at the other end.

Horatio pulled the phone away from his ear. "Did you get it?"

Calleigh and Eric both shook their head's miserably. "It was too short." She didn't apologize but merely stated a fact.

"She's alive," Horatio muttered, "And that might not be for the best."

§

The small building Horatio pulled up to was not at all what he expected. The dumpy little clinic barely caught his eye. Normally, he believed that clinics such as this were out of working condition. He pulled into the nearest space and walked to the front door of the building, ignoring the bars on the windows. _Now why would this place have a morgue? _

Eric followed close behind, and having grown accustomed to Horatio's thinking process, remained silent.

A small desk with a glass booth sheltered a small squat woman, her gray curls held up tight in a white cap.

"I need your name, address, and what you're here for, if you've ever been here before and which doctor you prefer." Without looking up she slid a small clipboard through the gap between the glass shield and the desk.

"Actually, we're here to see Jared Stine." Eric nodded his head behind Horatio's back.

"CSI. We're here investigating a kidnapping and we need to speak to Jared Stine," Eric repeated.

"Well, he hasn't been to work for days." The little old lady grunted as she stood up. "I can give you his number if you'd like. I know it's not in the phone book." She turned around to go through one of the many gray filing cabinets.

"Actually, we'd like to see the morgue." Horatio watched the woman turn around with great effort before analyzing them.

"Alright then. But if you pull any funny business, I've got the cops on speed dial." Horatio nodded his head and the two followed the nurse down the hallway and to the left. They crouched going down a flight of stairs into the morgue. It was cramped but in a working condition.

"When he left us high and dry work started to pile up. We only just got a new guy to help do the lifting." The nurse frowned once again and age crept into her face.

"Really? And can you tell me why, exactly, you have a morgue here?"

She eyed him once again and turned to face Eric, rather the Horatio, deciding she liked his youth better. "We get all the gang related deaths in here. The bodies only stay here for a two days before they're collected by the bigger hospitals. The mother's know where to come should their kid be missing."

"I see. And can you tell me exactly what Mr. Sine did?" Her attention was once again on Horatio.

"Oh, he just cleaned up after the medical examiner and helped lug the bodies away. A grunt job." She shrugged. "It really wasn't much of a loss. There are lots of people looking for work around here anyways."

Horatio nodded and turned to leave. Eric followed in pursuit and they left the clinic the same way they came—at a loss.

"So either our Jared Sine has gone on vacation, or he's gone into hiding."

§

"So we talked to your daughter George," Eric started. He looked down at the beady eyed man darkly.

"Did you? How is she?"

Not sounding very concerned, Eric replied "Oh, she's dying."

George Sine sat up with a start. "No she's not!"

Eric regarded him with a threatening manner. "Would you care to tell me how you know that Mr. Sine?"

"Well… sh-she's just a teenager. That's all. I'm sure her mother's death shocked her and she ran away. That's all." He looked quite proud of himself and leaned back in his chair.

"Really? Do teenagers sound like this?" Eric placed a voice recorder on the table. The conversation between Horatio and Carrie repeated through the tense air within the room.

"Where is he George?"

"Where is who?" George looked down at the recorder, concerned for his daughter's welfare for what seemed like a moment before twiddling his thumbs.

"Jared. We know he has her, and we know that you had something to do with it. It's too perfect. We talk to your neighbors: they said you were great people. Business partners said the same thing. What I don't understand George is how you can hand off your daughter without feeling a thing. What I don't understand is how you can let her mother be slaughtered right in front of her."

"What are you talking about?"

"Since your lawyer has yet to show, I suggest you just tell me now. Unless you would like me to list off the consequences of how this could go down." Eric slammed his fists on the table. "Tell me George!"

"Don't worry! She's fine!" George stood up and the guards standing both inside and out of the room stood alert. "My brother is taking care of her—feeding her a story. I-I didn't want her to know I responsible, so my brother handled it."

"Responsible for what?"

George looked away. "I hired a hit man… my wife… Carrie isn't mine! She looks nothing like, she acts like her mother who cheated on me! That stupid bitch!" A small froth formed at the corner of his mouth. "My brother said he knew this guy who would do it for free. And he would take Carrie for the weekend, but after I'd found out what happened, it was out of my control. How was I supposed to know that _he'd_ kill my wife? How was I supposed to know _he'd_ kidnap my daughter? Was I supposed to fess up to murder? What was I supposed to do?"

Eric looked at him with disgust. "Where is he living?"

"I don't know."

"Cuff him." Eric stormed out of the room, his thoughts overwhelming his brain. He felt as though he might explode. He had to get Horatio.

§

_She clutched the phone tight inside her fist, willing it to stay quiet. The last thing she need was for it to go off while he was doing his thing. She felt him lick her toes and up her legs and shivered. She need to clean up... to get away. He would allow her that, wouldn't he?_

_"Uncle Jared, I need to bathe."_


	3. Chapter 3

**Can't Wipe It Off**

**PART 3**

"_You need to bathe?" He stood up in front of her, eyeing her up and down. _

_She nodded._

"_Fine. But you need a better reason than that." He laughed and walked to the far corner of the room. She squinted to try and see, although she knew she would fins out eventually._

_He walked softly towards her, his boots tapping on the cold cement. A long knife was in his hand, already stained with blood, it's coppery glint nerve-wracking under the glow of a single fluorescent light._

§

Horatio listened closely to the first hand account of Eric's interview with the murderer. He turned to both Calleigh and Eric to accompany him.

"Where? We have no lead. We don't have any idea where he's hiding." Calleigh's thoughtful observation unnerved Horatio. What if he was wrong?

"Where do the majority of gang fights take place? Where are the bodies stashed? Is that not the easiest place for a former morgue attendant to hide? It's somewhere he knows best and can easily identify. It's dark and windowless, like Carrie said on the phone call, and generally they stink. Warehouses. We start from the upper west side, and move downward."

Calleigh nodded and turned to grab her gun, while Eric did the same. Horatio however, was already prepped.

The chase began in the hot Miami sun, and continued that way until at noon the warehouses they searched began to reek of dead animals and the homeless. It was around four hours after starting their search they stopped for water and a brief break, only to start up again a mere ten minutes later.

The cops that followed behind began to get annoyed, their patience wearing. Some understood and followed while others dallied behind, believing this to be a wild goose chase.

"How many more?" asked Calleigh, her voice coming softly through chapped lips. Eric looked onto his map where Horatio had previously pinpointed all abandoned warehouses on that side of the city. "Four. Only four."

"We'll do this one now." Horatio pointed to a warehouse marked with a green sticker and nodded his head. They all got back into their vehicles and took off. Coming up in front of an abandoned concrete building, they parked around back at what once was the loading and shipping dock.

Pulling out his gun, Horatio led the team in, moving around the greasy corridor and avoiding bits of rubbish and old food. It was two hallways down when he saw the blood. Trailing along the floor it lead to four different rooms, each one of them blocked by a steel door.

Horatio motioned to the first one and turned the doorknob. Inside was a single hook hanging from a beam in the ceiling, a wooden rod, and rope. A pile of clothes lay in the corner and Calleigh shuffled over. She picked up a young woman's top—blue with some type of slogan. Also was a pair of pants. She looked up a Eric and Horatio, a fear in her eyes only a woman could know.

She nodded and they shuffled quietly to the next room. Again they found articles and blood spattered about, but no living person.

In the third door there was gun. A small handgun and Calliegh picked it up. Two bullets were missing from it.

Out of options they held there breath and kicked in the last door, the cops going first and finally, and to their surprise, they found a man. Jared Sine.

Looking a mess, Jared was half naked, with no pants but a pair of underwear and a loose shirt. A scraggly beard hung from his chin and he dropped a can of beer from the six pack sitting beside his chair. Carrie wasn't in the room.

"Stand up and put your hands in the air!" Belted Horatio, his eyes practically bulging out of his head. "Jared Sine you are under the arrest and kidnapping of Carrie Sine and unless you wish to increase that charge to murder in the first degree, you will tell me where she is." With a violence that his team was unused to, Horatio poked the barrel of his gun into Jared's back so hard that he moaned.

"Don't shoot me man… don't shoot me…basement man, she's in the basement. The tub man…"

Horatio yanked his hair. "Good." With that he pushed through his team and down to the left where they had passed a set of stairs.

His feet thumped down and he barreled around the corner. The open basement had only one door at the far side. He sprinted across and took a quick breath before opening the door.

Almost black inside, Horatio could make out a washing basin, toilet and tub—probably used for cleaning fabrics back when the warehouse was in use. As his eyes adjusted he saw motion in the tub.

Carrie looked up at him frightened and scared, her body half submerged in cold water, the upper half covered with only a bra. She sat in her underwear, blood trickling down her face and shoulders, various knife marks cut across her abdomen.

She was clutching a cell phone, frantically dialing the same number over and over again. She continued to get the voicemail of her mothers phone and didn't understand why no one was picking up.

"Carrie."

She looked up, her fierce blue eyes watery and swollen. "I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."

Horatio rushed in, taking off his jacket in one hasty motion. "I'm here to help, can you stand?"

She looked up at him and with recognizing the voice burst into tears. Carrie wept with anguish and tried her best to support her shoulder while her body was racked with sobs. Horatio noticed immediately the hole in her shoulder. He leaned into the tub and ignoring the freezing wetness against his cotton shirt, slid his arm under her good shoulder and lifted her out.

"You're going to be okay… I know I know…" he consoled her and supported her frame all the while trying to cover what was left of her undergarments with his jacket. Her stomach was practically falling out, and as his eyes still adjusted, he noticed how pale she was… how lost. "Medic please!" he yelled. "Medic!"

She collapsed in his arms, and he did his best to lay her down on the ground, supporting her head and covering her up. She was silently weeping now, tears rolling down her face as her body stopped moving altogether. She was utterly quiet.

"Thank you."

§

"Good afternoon Carrie."

She looked up from the hospital bed a little jumpy. Ever since _it_ happened she couldn't hear a mans voice without jumping. A little more composed she decided she would be an adult, not the crying little girl he rescued.

"Lieutenant Caine, it's nice to see you." It was a lie. The moment the words jumped off her tongue she regretted them " I mean… I need to thank you." The seventeen year old adjusted the bandage wrapped around her shoulder and tried to keep her face down, hot from shame.

"I thought you deserve a visit. Hospitals are lonely places." Horatio pulled off his sunglasses and looked kindly down at the girl.

"I… I'm fine thanks."

"I'm sure you are. However, it's never a bad thing to have some company."

She nodded. "You… you want to watch some TV?" Her blonde hair was pulled back and her pale torso could be seen underneath the delicate dressings around her upper body. A blanket had been wrapped around her shoulders.

"I would love to."

There was a moment of silence as Horatio settled himself in the chair beside Carrie's bed.

"Where are they going to send me?" Carrie turned to look at the detective, her voice tight. "I have no mama, no papa—h-he is dead to me. No uncle's or aunts…" she shuddered. "Will I go into foster care? I do not wish… I do not want to live with someone I don't know."

"I'm sure we will find arrangements that suit your—"

"Who will want me? I am… I am tainted! And the blood and the filth—I can't wipe it off!" She swiftly turned her head to face the window, the sun glinting off the newly formed tears in her eyes.

Horatio fixed her with a blank stare. He stood up. "If I had a daughter, I would want her to be like you. Smart, aware, and strong." He patted her on the shoulder and walked out.

_Well, the end of my first mini series. Hope you liked it. Please review!_


End file.
